Colo retailer won't sell guns with large magazines

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — Colorado outdoor retailer Jax Mercantile has stopped selling rifles and handguns with high-capacity magazines at its six stores in Colorado and Iowa because of last week's school shooting in Connecticut.

Jax President Jim Quinlan said Friday that the ban applies to firearms that come with magazines holding more than 10 rounds and to firearms designed for military or paramilitary use.

Jax will continue selling conventional hunting rifles.

The type of weapon covered is "a judgment call," Quinlan said. He said the deciding factor will be, "Does this firearm have a sporting application?"

Quinlan said the company would also stop selling individual magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

Quinlan's decision was first reported by the Boulder Daily Camera.

Jax is based in Fort Collins and has stores there and in Lafayette and Loveland, Colo., and one in Ames, Iowa.

"We really want to be perceived as a sporting, family-oriented local business," Quinlan told The Associated Press. "It's pretty much a moral and personal decision on my part."

Jax stores sold out of the type of weapons Quinlan is banning in the days after the Newtown, Conn., shooting in which a man wielding a Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and multiple 30-round magazines killed 27 people. The victims included 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the gunman's mother in her home. He killed himself with a handgun as police approached.

Quinlan said the company has received some criticism of the decision, but people who want military-style firearms can buy them elsewhere.